Congratulations to Scottish Tory contender Ruth Davidson for being the first to lose a staffer in the increasingly bitter race to be the next leader of the Scottish Tories. The long over-due punch-up is getting down and dirty, with the Sunday Herald turning over Davidson’s agent and campaign staffer for burning an EU flag and slagging off Catholics.

While the flag burning is hardly a vote loser in a Tory race, with Davidson’s supporters spinning the line that she’s “Dave’s choice”, it seems the lesbian newbie MSP is desperate to keep her Cameroon credentials intact – such rabid anti-European views are clearly unacceptable in the modern Conservative Party. Given that the Scottish Tories lost one leadership hopeful – John Lamont – for dodgy papal digs, you would think Davidson would be more careful at a time when Scotland is searching its sectarian soul. Who would have thought someone who has only been in politics since May, and already running for leader, would not have done proper staff checks…

George Osborne says of Natalie Rowe and William Sinclair that “I met them together occasionally in the autumn of 1993”. She says he paid her £350 for kinky coke and domination sessions. In S & M games it is the practice to agree a “safeword” which is

“…a code word or series of code words that are sometimes used in BDSM for a submissive (or “bottom”) to unambiguously communicate their physical or emotional state to a dominant (or “top”), typically when approaching, or crossing, a physical, emotional, or moral boundary. Some safewords are used to stop the scene outright, while others can communicate a willingness to continue, but at a reduced level of intensity. Safewords are usually agreed upon before playing a scene by all participants.”

Natalie Rowe says Osborne’s agreed safeword with her was “Louise”. The question which many are asking is why “Louise”? What was the provenance of “Louise”? Guido draws co-conspirators attention to the lyrics of “Liza and Louise”, a punk rock single by NO-FX which was popular in S & M circles. It was released in 1992, the year before Osborne says he met Natalie. As this is a family blog we’re not going to go into the lyrics in great detail.

There are Boundary Review rumours swirling left, right and centre. What is becoming clear is that the LibDems have been shafted. It’s a generally bad day all round at the office for George Osborne, apparently his Tatton seat is for the chop. Something tells Guido he’ll be alright on this one though…

One concrete plan Guido has managed to get hold of though is the South London re-jigging that is seeing the Labour core of Tooting merge into Streatham and the rest being merged into an uber-safe Tory seat around Wandsworth. Two blog baddies – Sadiq Khan and Chuka Umunna in a fight to the death. It’s Christmas come early. Chuka? Khan? Ain’t nobody does it better…

The story that is tantalising Westminster this morning is that ABC News are going to broadcast an interview with Natalie Rowe where she alleges that she took cocaine with George Osborne during £350-a-time dominatrix sessions. The new hook for the story is that she is suing the News of the World for hacking her phone whereas when the Metropolitan police told George Osborne his phone was also hacked, he wasn’t interested in pursuing the issue. The story has been re-hashed as a result of the pending legal action.

The underlying suspicion of many seasoned Westminster observers is that Coulson’s hire was more Osborne than Cameron’s doing. A few weeks ago this point was being made in comment pieces on the media pages of the broadsheets. There was then a spate of stories suggesting that it was in fact Hague who was responsible for bringing Coulson into the Tory family, Hague was formerly a columnist for Andy Coulson’s News of the World. That briefing was put about to undermine the idea that Osborne had any motivation, quid pro quo, to hire Coulson.

The news that Vivian White, the respected Panorama veteran working on the Andy Coulson / hacking story for broadcast later in the year, had met Natalie Rowe, leaked out a few weeks ago. Knowledge of this is what first prompted some panic in No. 11….

“I mean it’s been said in the newspapers that he was at university. He wasn’t. At the time he was working for William Hague. I remember that vividly because he called William Hague insipid and I didn’t know what the word meant.